My hand stilled on the copper tap of the tea urn. Suddenly, I was listening with far sharperattention.
“We’re fortunate that so many of you set off early,” Lady Cosgrave said. “At least five families won’t be able to attend after all because of the state of the roads, and this snow isn’t likely to clear any time in the next week, as far as any of the weather wizards can tell. But then,theynever predicted how quickly this storm would begin in the first place,so—!”
I turned around, my cup still empty beneath the tap. “How many weather wizards are at this house party,ma’am?”
“How many?” She frowned. “It’s three now, isn’t it? Sansom, Hilbury, and that young one, Luton, who’s always growling to himself about something or other. Dreadful boy, really, but he’s Delilah’s nephew, so we could hardly leave him out of the invitation, no matter how unpleasant he mightbe.”
Murmurs of assent ran around the room, and more newspapersrustled.
“Weather wizards arenotthe question at hand, ladies!” Mrs. Seabury rapped her eagle-headed walking stick hard against the carpeted floor. “There’s no use hoping for a break in the storm now. The question is: will we have enough appropriate representatives of our own for the solstice circle? If there was ever a momentnotto offer the elven court any apparentdisrespect...”
More than one member of the semicirclewinced.
“I can think of at least one elf who would be delighted,” Lady Cosgrave said sourly. “If you ladies had seen the look on Lord Ilhmere’s faceyesterday...”
I abandoned my cup entirely as I moved to join the semicircle. “An elf-lord camehere?Yesterday?”
“Not here,” Lady Cosgrave said. “He would hardly deign to step into this house, I can assure you. We arefarbelow his touch as mere humans, you know.” She grimaced. “He can hardly bear the humiliation of our treaty, I believe, for all that it savedbothof our nations all those centuries ago. But he was spotted on our grounds yesterday afternoon, so my husband transported me out to meet him...as any gracious hostessshould.”
The look on her face said everything about the reception she had received. “He claimed he was here on behalf of his king, ensuring that everything was in readiness on our end despite the inclement weather. Needless to say, I assured him that all would be prepared for the solstice celebration...and naturally, he didn’t utter a single word of reassurance in his turn before he disappeared. But if anything isn’t perfect in our circle in six days’ time, I can safely swear that he, for one, will bemorethan delighted to seize upon it and present it as evidence to his king of our inadequacies asallies.”
“Wait.” I sank into my seat. “You’re saying the solstice ceremony is insix days’time?”
“Keep up, girl!” Mrs. Seabury snapped. “When did you think it would be?Spring?”
“I...hadn’t thought about it at all, actually.” Of course I knew the winter solstice must be coming soon, but I hadn’t consulted the almanac for a date. After all, it hadn’t had anything to do with me until now. No one I knew was so antiquated as to actually celebrate the twin solstices anymore—except, apparently, theelves.
Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that they were old-fashioned.
But the elf-lord’s deadline to me had suddenly taken on a newsignificance.
If anything isn’t perfect in ourcircle...
He was planning to confront me in the midst of the ceremony itself, wasn’t he? I seriously doubted thattwohigh elf-lords had been lurking in the grounds of Cosgrave Manor yesterday...and I couldn’t imagine any act more beautifully designed to disrupt a treaty ceremony than the capture and abduction of a daughter of theBoudiccate.
Lady Cosgrave might well allow me to be taken for the sake of the treaty. But it would be an outrageous slap in the face of our nation for Lord Ilhmere do it at such a moment, just as our long peace was being reaffirmed. And if the ceremony wasdisrupted...
“Cassandra,” Amy said, “you haven’t poured yourself any tea. Aren’t youthirsty?”
“What?” I snapped out of my thoughts to find all the ladies looking at me with more or less impatience. “Forgive me,” I said, straightening in my seat. “Too much politics and my brain shuts down,apparently.”
Mrs. Seabury let out a crack of laughter. “So much forthatbloodline! Poor Miranda. All herhopes...”
Lady Cosgrave hummed a disapproving,“Hmmm.”
The semicircle tightened back in on itself as conversation resumed, leaving my gauche interruptions behind. I sat in invisibility-seeking silence for all the rest of it, keeping my thoughts tomyself.
But I could sense Amy’s gaze on me more than once in the next quarter of an hour, and I knew I hadn’t fooled my sister-in-law in theslightest.
Jonathan wasin his and Amy’s bedroom when we arrived, seated at the small writing table with two piles of papers stacked around him, a bottle of ink on the table, and even more blue ink smeared through the top of his thick brownhair.
Oh,dear.
“Are the footnotes really that bad?” I inquired, as I closed the door behind myself and Amy rustled into the room ahead ofme.
“Whatfootnotes?” Jonathan demanded. He pointed accusingly at the stacks of papers with one ink-stained finger. “Thoseare not footnotes. Those are a maze designed to drive men mad! The printers have jumbled them all out of order, and as I don’t have any of my reference books here toconsult—”
“My poor darling.” Amy put her hands on his shoulders and dropped a kiss on his ink-stained hair. “Could you look for them in Lord Cosgrave’slibrary?”
